A Few Words on Bonnaroo

A Few Words on Bonnaroo

Later this week, I'll head to Manchester, Tennessee, for my sixth-straight Bonnaroo. It's my summer camp. And, for my money, the best annual assembly of music-nerds in America. The difference between Bonnaroo and the bulk of the other marquee summer festivals comes down to duration and dedication. At your average festival, you're through the gates at noon, out by 10 p.m. At Bonnaroo, music generally starts at noon, but you can fill your dance-card till 4 a.m. (Saturday night's GZA performance won't start until 2:30 a.m.) Also, the average attendee is camping onsite, not driving, so they're there for nearly four days — arriving late on Sunday or slipping out early each night to beat traffic aren't factors. And the camping is where the dedication comes in: Seen Falling Skies? Read The Passage? If you're over thirty, life in Bonnaroo's tent-city looks like a lysergically-enhanced post-apocalyptic outpost. Volunteering for Bonnaroo is nothing short of a declaration of your commitment to music — your belief that a great day of discoveries can outweigh the standard of living to which you're accustomed. (Full disclosure: I work for the festival, moderating press conferences in the media tent. As such, I sleep in a hotel. I'm kind of embarrassed that I get to shower like a human being. I really am.)

Here's where that duration and dedication add up to the best festival in America: Since nobody is clock-watching, and everybody, by their mere presence and perseverance, is dedicated to live music, the focus isn't just on the names in the top tier of the lineup. Radiohead, Phish, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers will play to enormous crowds, but the side-stages and tents will also be packed by curious music fans — true believers with eclectic tastes and an engrained, time-tested faith in the festival's organizers. Bonnaroo is where young bands accustomed to pulling their Ford Econolines up to half-empty clubs in tertiary markets get to play for the biggest crowds of their careers. And, really, the bottom half of this year's Bonnaroo bill has never sounded stronger. Here's a look at the undercard. A few acts come in with some buzz. Others have less than a thousand Twitter followers. Almost all of them will play really early or really late. And whether or not you, too, are headed to Manchester, your favorite new band might just be on the list.

White Denim, "Drug"

White Denim, "Drug"

You know those moments in a Wilco or My Morning Jacket show in which the band wanders off on a tangent, and the crowd erupts when they somehow bring it all the way back around eight minutes later? That's every song at a White Denim gig. This Austin quartet sounds like the Strokes one minute, the Grateful Dead the next, but since everything is rooted in fundamentally solid pop songs, the psychedelic freakouts enhance rather than distract.